final debate tomorrow night right here on cnn. special programs begins 7:00 p.m. eastern time. i want to hand it over to chris for "cuomo primetime." >> thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo and welcome to "prime time." both iran and russia are actively interfering with our election right now. this comes from the head of our intelligence community just tonight. >> we would like to alert the public that we have identified that two foreign actors, iran and russia, have taken specific actions to influence public opinion relating to our elections. we have already seen iran sending spoofed e-mails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage president trump. >> now, we reported last night

on those e-mails from what looked like a proud boys account. they were sent to voters in florida and elsewhere, threatening them to vote for trump. officials say those were not from the proud boys. the proud boys themselves have denied any involvement in this. but our officials say they are from iran. but then the director of national intelligence also said there was an additional motive to hurt trump. we have seen no evidence of that and none was offered. the house homeland security committee tweeted this in response. do not listen to radcliff, partisan hack. and followed up to say that americans should listen to the fbi director instead. now, about the e-mails we have seen. our government says, again, iran is behind messages like this. i say it twice because a lot of you are getting them. and, yes, they are threatening whether you are in florida or alabama or wherever they're

going now. it is not from the proud boys according to iran, all right? now, you will see threats in these e-mail ifs you don't vote for trump, we have your information. we know where you live. we will come after you. a lot of people getting these have already voted. but still very scary to receive one, i'm sure. the choice to use the proud boys is also relevant. it is proof that the president's influence at home and abroad is real because he talked this group up, and he made them a target of opportunity for our enemies. remember his message to the hateful proud boys of stand back and standby at the last debate. now we know at least one foreign actor was listening. these foreign efforts are expected, by the way. we saw them in 2016. we see them all the time. what's not expected is for their goal to be given a boost by our president. no word from him about these findings tonight, and the timing of these findings also very

interesting. they come as president obama hit the trail today for joe biden, and he gave the most forceful case against trump that we've heard in this campaign. we have all the high points and analysis of what former president obama said, but we have to see just how big a shadow he will cast over trump's fate in this election. certainly obama seemed more concerned about our national security from events like this tonight before the revelations than trump has even after them. so let's discuss the threat level involved in what we learned tonight in this breaking news and what can be done about it. let's bring in andrew mcgain and james clapper. they said iran and russia got their hands on voter information. andrew, what does that mean, voter information? how invasive do we believe this can be? what can they do with this kind of information? >> well, that's a really good question, chris.

it's not clear from the statements we got at the press conference tonight exactly how the iranians or the russians accessed voter information. there is some voter information that's pretty easily acquired online. that's very different from actually probing the voter registration databases of individual states and staging a cyber intrusion into those systems and stealing information. that's the sort of activity that we saw back in 2016. we know the russians probed the voter registration databases of every state. if that's what's happening here, and again it is not clear that that's what -- that's not how they described it. altering voter registration information can be a very serious threat because you could essentially eliminate many people from the voter roles. and the statement was pretty vague. just simply said they had acquired voter information. >> jim, first of all, great to

see you. thank you for being on the show tonight. and the idea of what andrew is talking about, that this was a little vague, does that mean they are still developing an understanding of this situation, or is this about also how much you tell the american public about the risk? >> well, unfortunately, chris, you know, you have to wonder about what were the amotives here. why a press conference in which evidence itself on the heels of president obama's, you know, pretty historic speech. >> good. i'm glad you said it, jim. because i didn't want to seem cynical about it, but the timing is a little curious, right? they have known about these e-mails. they could have told us about this. they could have flushed more of it out. and yet it came tonight. it is interesting that you see that as a little suspicious as well. >> well, i do, just given, you

know, the track record of dni radcliff where he's used intelligence for different purposes. i have to say it, but you have to address what he says with some skepticism. and just an add-on to what andy said about 2016, the russians, we saw, voter registration rules which weren't all that hard to penetrate. we saw, i think, some 39 states and they probably did it with all 50. so they know how to do it. i remember our speculating about what the purpose was, you know, for some future use. so just a historical note here. the other thing about the statement that the dni made was that you just mention russia and they went on to iran. well, russia has been interfering in the run-up to the election all along, so that's not a starling revelation.

and he didn't amplify that. and i would continue to believe that russia poses far more of a threat. and i think we're going to see more of this. and as to the assertion that this somehow hurts president trump, well, i can make the case that it helps him. >> well, certainly the proud boys stuff helps him because it is scaring people who were obviously sent messages because they didn't vote for him. what i found unusual, whatever you want to add, please, we have the e-mails. i reported on them last night with one of our reporters about what we had learned so far. no proof offered of the intentions to hurt trump. well, why not? you know that this is going to be something where people are only going to want to know what you can show. you showed the e-mails. why didn't you show what was being out out there that was bad for trump? they have to know if you don't put out any proof, it smacks of politics. >> it really does. and i'll tell you from my own

experience, having been through the process with director clapper in 2016, the intelligence community doesn't come out with an official analytical judgment along the lines of, you know, the iranians are trying to hurt president trump without rock solid evidence to prove that. and we got none of that evidence tonight from the dni who has proven himself to be an overtly political influence on the intelligence process with the things that he's been, you know, involved in over the last couple weeks, releasing intelligence for political purposes. so it's hard to imagine how the two instances he cited in his comments actually hurt president trump. the proud boys issue that you mentioned and also he said that there was indications that iran had a video that implied that people could cast fraudulent ballots from overseas. that also supports a main line of president trump's argument that the election could be

replete with fraud. i am not buying it at this point. i think we should all have a skeptical eye at that until we have proof. >> you represent the two schools that were out there tonight, the two different institutions. and, jim, not only did they not offer any proof, but there are two other suggestions. run, wray did not echo what radcliff said. he did not talk about the threat imposed by iran. and he doubled down, because he had said this before, on don't believe internet reports about votes not counting or the election being messed with. now here's the weird part about that. we don't need iran or russia to plant that idea in our head. the president bangs on it all the time. what is more menacing to people's state of mind than their own leader telling them it's happening. >> that's another unfortunate dimension of this is that, unfortunately, these foreign

narratives agree with the president and vice versa. that's really unfortunate. but the bigger point here, chris, to me is that it would really be nice if we could just take at face value when the director of national intelligence and the director of fbi come out of a quickly called press conference. it would be so nice if we could just accept what they said at face value and not spend all this time parsing and trying to analyze what's really going on. and that, to me, is a sad commentary. >> and then some more sad commenta commentary, "the washington post" reporting that the president is increasingly upset with christopher wray and thinking about replacing him as the head of the fbi. this can't help because i'm sure he didn't like that he wasn't in line with the dni tonight. and he doesn't probably -- again, this is just crazy world that we're living in, but, yes, these words are about to come out of my mouth. the president of the united states probably didn't like the head of the fbi saying not to

worry about our election being fraudulent, your votes will count. that is a bizarre world, but that is trump's disposition. he wants people not to trust the count. what does that mean if he were to get rid of wray over something like this? you don't think he would do it before the election. >> i think it's unlikely he will do it before the election. but, really, anything is possible with this president at any moment. what do we know about this president? we know that he really doesn't like it when the people who work for him say things that he disagrees with or things that he minds to be uncomfortable. chris wray went on national television in this press conference and made statements that directly contradict the president's false narrative about voting fraud and electoral fraud. that is not going to be taken well by this president. i can tell you from personal experience, he does not like it when people don't tow the political line that he prefers.

even if the election doesn't go his way, it is possible that he comes in after the election and removes the director simply out of spite. >> hey, jim, last question and i'll let you guys go. thank you so much. do you think it makes it more or less likely that the president has been outspoken about wanting the attorney general to investigate biden even after the doj passed on its latest investigation in terms of bringing any charges about unmasking and that him saying he wants director wray at the fbi to investigate biden, do you think that makes it less likely that it happens because it would look so overtly political? >> well, exactly. and it seems to me it's counter productive from the president's perspective for his purposes to say things like that, which i don't -- you know, i just don't think are going to happen. in fact, the attorney general says so. so i don't understand -- well, like so many things i don't understand about the president, why he's doing that and how that

helps his cause. >> how could you have ever believed we would be having a conversation on national television about foreign adversaries doing things to interfere in the election that are less damaging than what our own president has been saying about our election process? that's where we are, gentlemen, but thank you for making sense of it for the audience tonight. i appreciate it. the best to both families. god bless. all right. so joe biden has a not secret at all weapon who hit the husings today with righteous fury for the country. former president barack obama. he hadn't been there a lot. he wasn't there early on, but, boy, did he make his presence felt today. he said things not just about this president but about this country in a way that we have never seen. what will this mean for the outcome of this election? we haven't seen a bigger influence on biden's fate as we

saw tonight, and maybe the president's as well. two of our sharpest minds will take us through what we saw today, all the highlights for you, and the implications next. cuomo "prime time," brought to you by ecolab, advancing higher levels of cleanliness at the places you eat, play, stay and shop. ♪ ♪ the expertise that helps keep hospitals clean, is helping keep businesses clean too. look for the ecolab science certified seal.

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there are so many people around the country who are desperate for something to sway them in what is absolutely a binary choice. this country is going to move in one of two very different directions after this election. and for those who are open, boy did they get a powerful solicitation tonight. former president obama unplugged and unloading on trump and the status quo. >> he hasn't shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his

friends or treating the presidency like a reality show that he can use to get attention. and by the way, even then his tv ratings are down, so you know that upsets him. we know that he continues to do business with china because he's got a secret chinese bank account. how is that possible? how is that possible? a secret chinese bank account. listen, can you imagine if i had had a secret chinese bank account when i was running for re-election? you think -- you think my -- you think fox news might have been a little concerned about that? they would have called me beijing barry. >> and he was just getting warmed up. you've got to hear about what he said about the president's character and the pandemic, two very, very big issues for a lot of voters. but, look, he's not running,

right? i'm sure a lot of democrats would be more happy if he were, but biden, obama's case was, is the closest thing to him that you have certainly in this election. biden is going to have to deliver the knock-out. i know they say he's getting ready for the debate and it is a big night for him tomorrow night, but eventually he's going to have to make his own luck here. he's either going to have to win people over or get put on the matt himself, and a big part of it is going to happen tomorrow night. why? come on. you don't have to be an analyst for this. it is the last best hope for both biden and trump to milwaukee an impact on you versus the other. but remember the real enemy. especially for this president is the pandemic. will he be able to hide from it. everybody thinks it's about biden and his son. i think it's just as likely to be about the president. thank you very much. a lot of news breaking all over it. dana, fair assessment that this

was a different obama than we've seen post presidency? >> absolutely. this is a different former president than i think any that we have seen certainly in modern times. this breaks the former president code, and this is a former president who clearly does not do thatting light inlightly. all of our reporting and everything we have seen and heard from him from the convention and certainly until today is that he didn't want to, you know, to wade into the political pool too often, even though he felt that his successor poses an existential threat to democracy. i mean, they're nothing short of that. but now it's different. now it's time for him to make that argument, to get out there. it is time to get people to vote. so it was a complete combination of getting people fired up, to use his term, to convince members of the democratic base

who just aren't sure. i mean, he articulated this. am i going to make a difference? yes, you are. do i think this is the guy? yes, he is. and then just a total take-down, as you played, of president trump in a way that i don't think that we ever expected in our lifetime we would see and hear from a former president about his successor. >> well, let's be honest, it's necessary for joe biden. >> yeah. i'm not saying that it was a bad thing, making judgment on that. i think it's a sign of the times. >> yeah, certainly a sign of the state of play. so, tim, he hit him with a one-two punch today. he hit him on the man, and then he hit him on his main mission, which is the pandemic. first let me play what he said about trump, the man. >> why are folks making excuses for that? well, that's just him. no, it's -- no! there are consequences to these actions.

they embolden other people to be cruel and divisive and racist. and it frays the fabric of our society and it affects how our children see things, and it affects the ways that our families get along. it affects how the world looks at america. that behavior matters. character matters. >> i'll tell you what, systemic inequality racism isn't new, but having people run around the streets like they are because of what this president does, on both sides, is certainly a fomenting we have never saw under any president since the '60s. what is the relevance of this kind of attack from obama, tim? >> well, you know, i imagine that barack obama has been si

siting on these thoughts and emotions for quite some time. let's think back to the dignity and grace obama displayed during the transition after trump was elected and on inauguration day. he didn't go anywhere remotely close to where he went today. and in the span of time since then, you had donald trump in the oval office openly embracing financial conflict of interest, undermining a number of u.s. institutions, smearing our reputation abroad and flagrantly embracing racism and bigotry. i have to suspect that this is almost they are prapeutic for b obama to finally speak about what's on his mind, that donald trump lacks the character and composure to sit in the oval

office. you can say anything you want about ideological differences with obama, partisan differences with barack obama. he is an immensely sophisticated and dignified man. couldn't be more polar opposite from trump. >> i think he gave us a little bit of a window into what biden is going to bring tonight as his main missile against the president. it's going to be the pandemic. i still believe the big opposition for trump is not biden. it's the pandemic. here is what obama said about the response. >> look, i get that this president wants full credit for the economy he inherited and zero blame for the pandemic that he ignored. but you know what? the job doesn't work that way. tweeting at the television doesn't fix things. making stuff up doesn't make people's lives better. you've got to have a plan.

you've got to put in the work. and along with the experience to get things done, joe biden has concrete plans and policies that will turn our vision of a better, fair, stronger country into a reality. we literally left this white house a pandemic play book that would have shown them how to respond before the virus reached our shores. they probably used it to, i don't know, prop up a wobbly table somewhere. we don't know where that play book went. >> so trump is going to come long and strong on hunter biden tomorrow night. we know it. and i don't know how biden will deal with the irony that trump wants to talk about, you know, sons and how money is made and what is abusive. but i don't know that biden is better served by going head to head about family and fiduciary responsibility or just keep going back to the pandemic. what do you think, dana? >> you know, from all of my

reporting, the former vice president has been extremely reluctant to do an eye for an eye. meaning, oh, yeah, you are going to talk about my kids? let's talk about your kids who are working in the white house and could go on from there. having said that, you know, i think president obama did give us a little bit of a window into one potential line of attack or a retort, which is the story that we have seen this week about the allegations that president obama has money in a chinese bank account and pay taxes in china. i mean, the fact that obama brought that up is certainly a signal that his former number two is going to do that as well. and is going to try to pivot as much as possible every time trump brings up -- brings up his son's name. unclear if he can do that. he was supposed to try to ignore the attacks on his son at the first debate, and he couldn't do

it. one other thing i want to tell you because right before coming on, we all probably got on our e-mail an advisory from the biden campaign. president obama is going to do another event on saturday in florida. so he's going -- he's kind of hopscotching to the key puzzle pieces that the biden campaign have out there on their, you know, on their map where they need to win. trump needs to win florida. he probably needs to win pennsylvania if he's going to defeat donald trump. >> yeah. i think pennsylvania is the state to watch. i'm out of type. thank you very much, dana. tim, thank you for being here on short notice. another important news tonight. the cdc just gave out new information, refining the risk of what kind of contact matters. okay? especially with somebody who's positive. now, this has been changing over time, and it's going to change

once again, and i think it's important for us to kind of consider what they're telling us now and how it will work in every day life. the chief doctor is here, sanjay gupta. we're going to have to change our habits. let's talk about it next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ toni(doorbell rings)ting crab cakes with spicy aioli. ♪ thank you. can we be besties, simone biles? i guess? yessss! should we dismount now? ♪ oh, oh, (announcer)®! ♪ once-weekly ozempic® is helping

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scott wiener immediately went to work, making sure families could put food on their tables, defending renters facing eviction, securing unemployment benefits, helping neighborhood businesses survive. scott wiener will never stop working until california emerges from this crisis.

the bay area needs scott's continued leadership in sacramento. because we know scott is fighting for all of us. re-elect scott wiener for state senate. cases are up more than the experts expected at this point in the fall and in more places. hospitalization rates are on the rise, and that's a lagging indicator, so that means by the time we find that out, we know we have trouble. now comes new information regarding how covid-19 is being transmitted. the cdc's new guidelines redefine close contact with an infected person. so what does that mean, close contact with an infected person? it now includes multiple brief exposures that add up to 15

minutes instead of only continuous contact for a long time. let's bring in chief doctor sanjay gupta for more on this guidance. now first it was don't touch things. you can get it. we moved passed that. and then it was, well, you have to be around a person for a long time. and we had this scenario of i'd rather give someone a hug and walk on than talk to somebody in a close setting for several minutes. now they're saying that period of about 15 minutes is relevant, but you can get to it episodically and not just in one contact. is that it? >> yeah, that's basically it, chris. you know, in some ways it's always been a bit arbitrary, i think as you are sort of eluding to, right? you have 15 minute contact. what if the person sneezes in the middle of that after a minute? does that change anything? what if you are five feet away instead of six feet away. it always felt a bit arbitrary.

and this guidance now is reflecting that. i will show you quick. you talked about it, chris, but i will show people again what was close contact? within six feet for at least 15 minutes. now cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period. so it kind of better reflects, i think, what we have been told, which is that you should wear a mask. this is really about masks ultimately. this whole guidance is about masks, basically saying wear a mask. even if you think you are going to be around somebody for a few minutes, wear a mask. we know that masks have been politicized and we know that people are very happy about that, especially on the right. but it's about fatigue as much as it is about masks now, right, sanjay? people have had it. the president is right about that. we're coming up to the holidays.

people don't want to wear masks. we'll keep it smart while we're together. and more and more the clusters aren't community spread of massive populations, they're little micro clusters of exactly what we all do on the holidays. how big of a deal is this changing guidance now? >> well, you know, i think it is a pretty big deal, chris. and this isn't easy. i have been going through this with my own family, trying to figure out the holidays. maybe you have as well. the issue is this, if it is your own family cluster you have been with the whole time, obviously that's not the concern because you have been with folks in your own family living in the same household for months now. if you start to bring in other people, parents perhaps vulnerable. my parents are in their late 70s. i think that that's going to be a concern. it's going to be very hard certainly to maintain distance. it's going to be hard to be outside because it's cold. i think, you know, if you are doing dinner, you can't obviously mask. so it's a challenging proposition. people have asked me, what is the best way to do it?

i absolutely want to meet with my family over the holidays. how could i possibly do it? first of all, i tell them that i'm not, having gone through the iterations myself. but if you wanted to do it, you probably want to get tested, then go into essentially a quarantine for 14 days, possibly get tested again after that at the point where you visit. you want to be wearing masks as much as possible. be outside as much as possible. open windows to increase ventilation and try to keep distance. doesn't sound like a fun holiday is my point. there is a lot of hurdles to jump through. this year is going to be tough. i think this year is a wash. next year thanksgiving i hope i can spend it with my family and you can spend it with yours. i think it will be tough this year and it won't feel like a good holiday having gone through all those hoops. >> well, look, they changed it for a reason. they're changing it right before the holidays, just taking into consideration it's not just one piece of contact, little contacts can add up. it's just one more reason for us to fight the fatigue if we want

to get better. thank you very much. none of this is easy. nobody is saying it is. trump and biden aren't the only ones focussed on the last 13 days of this election. mcconnell, pelosi, schumer, mccarther, they're all wondering if they are going to see a massive shakeup in congress. what is the chance? the wizard of odds has been looking where they matter and why they matter. he has his special data goggles on next. it's an important time to save. with priceline, you can get up to 60% off amazing hotels. and when you get a big deal... ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal.

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so former vp joe biden is up an average of 11 percentage points in cnn's latest poll of poles. you know what that is, the major polls taking the average of all of them. some will question that, especially seeing how the popular vote doesn't win the election. i'm with you. i say we may appreciate the state of play better by looking down ballot, meaning looking at the battles in different states on the congressional level. what's going on in different areas and why? can democrats keep and grow their majority in the house? what are their chances of flipping the senate? the more seats flip, the more we get a suggest of the electorate in the presidential race as well. to go through them, harry with his newest forecast. good to see you, brother.

let's start with the senate. the democrats need a net gain of three unless trump is re-elected. then they need four. what do you see? >> sure. so essentially, look, these are the polling averages and essentially as you said the democrats need a net gain of three. the republicans will get alabama. so they will need at least four of the seats on the left side of your screen. and look at that. they are leading in five, in fact five republican held seats right now, arizona, colorado, iowa, maine and north carolina. you can see iowa and north carolina specifically are close, two and three point races. the question is why are democrats in this position to pick up the majority. i think you see it well when you look at those five pickup opportunities. look at the presidential race in those states. what you see is look here, look, in all the states where the democrats are leading right now their pickup opportunities, joe biden is also leading and the differences across those seats tend to be rather small. to me it is a clear sign that

trump is dragging down republican senators with him. >> all right. so if we take a look, so we see that that kind of echoes what we see in the main race fine. now, house races. republicans 197 house seats. they need 218 to win control. how are the republicans looking at moving that house? >> yeah. it ain't going to happen. i mean, if the senate race is within the margin of error and you might argue the presidential race is still within the margin on error, on the house side i'm not seeing. that's obviously dropped with some vacancies. but take a look at the forecast for this year, and you can see democrats are back favored to win 240 seats. so if anything, if we're looking at come november 3rd, i'm expecting that democrats will in fact increase their majority in the house of representatives. >> you kind of slipped one passed me there, but when you said that on the senate side it could be that trump is pulling them down because you see an echo effect between his numbers in the states and theirs.

flush that out a little bit better for us with this trump connection slide number four. >> yeah. so look here, this is the house of representatives. and i think, you know, these are three districts that trump won in 2016. they flipped from a gop representative to democrat in 2018. although the incumbent there is flipped. but take a look here. look at the poll. the 2020 house poll on the left side. and then you can see the 2020 press polling. what do you see? you see the democratic candidate in all those races are leading and joe biden is leading in the same polls. here is the key nugget here. these are districts that trump won in 2016. so what we see here again is biden is flipping these districts in the polls, and in doing so, it seems that the democratic house members are holding on to their leads. >> do you see any disconnect? do you see any place that republicans are doing well but trump isn't or vice versa. biden not doing well, but the democrats doing well?

>> yeah. i think it's really important to point out that what we have seen historically in the last few election cycles is that there is an increasing correlation between the results and the top of the ballot and then the results, you know, further down on the ballot, both at the house and senate levels. what i will say is there are perhaps a few republicans who might have household names, specifically in pennsylvania. fitzpatrick seems to be holding on. that's a district that hillary clinton did well in in 2016 and joe biden is probably going to win by double digits. but to be honest, those examples are few and far between. if anything, there are democrats who seem to be holding on to their seats despite trump being popular in those districts than republicans. >> let me pull you away from the numbers and see if your power of perspective holds. former president barack obama was atypically aggressive today with what he was saying about president trump. i have never heard any former president talk about a current president the way he did today.

impact? >> i mean, look, barack obama is a very popular figure still and he's a particularly popular figure against african-americans. and joe biden wants african-american support as close to the levels as barack obama had in 2012 in places like philadelphia, milwaukee and detro detroit. if joe biden wins those states, it will be awfully difficult for president trump to win re-election. d it doesn't hurt when you have bar rock obama campaigning for you. >> what does the past show us about the former president's ability to sway african-american or black men as voters? >> yeah. look, i tend to think endorsements don't really matter that much, but you are hitting the nail right on the head. if you look at the polling you see african-american men in particular are not as strongly associated with the joe biden brand as they were with the barack obama brand.

if there is one weakness in joe biden's armor right now it is voters of color who seem to be going more to donald trump's corner than they were four years ago. at this point it doesn't make a difference because biden is so far ahead. those types of small differences could make a major impact. >> how big a deal is the hunter biden stuff? >> i don't think it is big. voters care more about the food on their table than the problems that hunter biden has. >> how about debates? >> look, after that first debate you saw joe biden's points went up a bit. if there isn't a game changer, then donald trump is looking at a big deficit heading into the final couple of weeks here and the fact is, as you see it up on your screen right now, that 11 point lead. if it is anything close to that on election day, it's not going to be enough for trump to win. he needs to close the deficit, and then we'll have a conversation that president

trump has a real shot of winning not just a theoretical one. >> tomorrow night has a change to how it works that is a dream of yours, a mute button so that when you speak, i'm not able to. we'll see how that plays on the debate stage. harry, thank you. we'll be right back. >> thank you, sir. we took a bad economy that was falling and turned it around. trump took a good economy and drove it back into the ditch through his failure to get covid under control, his failure to deliver real relief to working people.

does he not understand and see the tens of millions of people who've had to file for unemployment this year, so far? the people who lost wages while the cost of groceries has gone up dramatically. donald trump has been almost singularly focused on the stock market, the dow, the nasdaq -- not you, not your families. my plan will help create at least five million new, good-paying jobs and create them right here in the united states of america. let's use this opportunity to take bold investments in american industry and innovation. so the future is made in america. i'll be laser focused on working families. ♪ i'm joe biden, and i approve this message.

something happened today in philadelphia. former president barack obama, i think the headline should be, obama strikes back. the president, president trump has been having his way with

obama, twisting his legacy and almost compulsively oriented to negating everything that obama does. now it's clear that the former president has been listening, and he came out today guns blasting for trump. attacked his character, called out the fact he failed at the pandemic and is looking to distract from that failure. also pressed the urgency of this moment. listen to this. >> what we do these next 13 days will matter for decades to come. last time i was in philadelphia, i was at the constitution center. and i was delivering a speech for the democratic national convention this year. and i said during that speech, i've sat in the oval office with both of the men who are running for president.

and they are very different people. i explained that i never thought donald trump would embrace my vision or continue my policies, but i did hope for the sake of the country that he might show some interest in taking the job seriously. but it hasn't happened. he hasn't shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his friends or treating the presidency like a reality show that he can use to get attention. by the way, even then his tv ratings are down, you know that upsets him. [ honking sounds ] >> but the thing is this is not a reality show, this is reality. and the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of

taking the job seriously. >> so he went at the man, but he also went at this moment. listen to this. >> our democracy's not going to work if the people who are supposed to be our leaders lie every day. and just make things up. i mean -- and we've just become numb to it, immune to it. every single day, fact checkers can't keep up. and look, this notion of truthfulness and democracy and citizenship and being responsible, these aren't republican or democratic principles, they're american principles. they're what we're -- they're

what we, most of us grew up learning from our parents and our grandparents. they're not white or black or latino or asian values, they're american values, human values. and we need to reclaim them. we have to get those values back at the center of our public life. and we can, but to do it we've got to turn out like never before. >> he talked so long it got dark. no seriously, he really went through a mission statement and a referendum on this presidency the likes i have never heard from a former president. now what impact will it have? how does it help biden, how does it help turnout, does it hurt trump? compelling questions. bring in compelling figure of d.

lemmon, about to take over anyway. >> felt like i was in church with ladies shouting on sunday. i had friend texted me said obama was an assassin, did you watch that speech? i think people were sitting at home saying it's about time. that's what i think. >> which people though? don't expect trump supporters to say i forgot how much i loved obama. most of the people who voted for trump probably did in reaction to obama. >> it was balm, salve on a wound because you don't hear that from former president, unprecedented. there's a bro code so to speak between presidents where you don't really talk about it, and this president did. and every single word he said was the truth. i don't think anyone is persuadable at this point. if you're undecided right now, listen -- i don't know, it's not

even the "twilight zone," i don't know where you're living, but i think most people are decided. but will serve to let democrats feel better about the election, may galvanize some trump supporters but i think in philadelphia, in pennsylvania, where there are -- it's a swing state, and some independent minded voters, may help some of those, and may help turnout, which is what democrats really need. >> white voters? >> oh, yeah, of course. >> black male voters? >> i think so. we talk about the fringe black male vote for donald trump, let's see how many people actually show up at the polls. i don't know any black men going to vote for donald trump except for people with a ton of money in the bank and looking at taxes and here's what they think, unlike black women who are the most educated of the voting bloc, who know what it's like to

be in a boardroom or business meeting and be manexplained when your idea is better and you're smarter than the men in the room. these black men think if i get the money and capital i'll be treated equally. they're in for a rude awakening, that's not how it works and women, especially black women, know that. these men are being bamboozled and played by the trump folks. i think it will not sway but motivate some black men to get to the polls. listen, president obama is very popular among all demographics except for the folks who hate him because they're strong trump supporters. but women who we call the church hat ladies, my mom, my aunts, my sisters, my young nieces, yeah, if it's not for